A walk on the wild side Everyone looks so weary in Howard Yezerski Gallery's gritty documentary photos of Boston's dear departed Combat Zone from 1969 to 1978. The year's still young, but this glimpse into our past from Roswell Angier, Jerry Berndt, and John Goodman may be one of the best shows of 2010.

Camera obscura An acquired taste in French cinema, Philippe Grandrieux is an abstractionist who does narrative features, a post-punk artiste as comfortable making Marilyn Manson music videos as he is war-zone documentaries. But his three major features — which the Harvard Film Archive is screening this weekend and next — revel in a dangerous minimalism.

A walk on the wild side Everyone looks so weary in Howard Yezerski Gallery's gritty documentary photos of Boston's dear departed Combat Zone from 1969 to 1978. The year's still young, but this glimpse into our past from Roswell Angier, Jerry Berndt, and John Goodman may be one of the best shows of 2010.

Camera obscura An acquired taste in French cinema, Philippe Grandrieux is an abstractionist who does narrative features, a post-punk artiste as comfortable making Marilyn Manson music videos as he is war-zone documentaries. But his three major features — which the Harvard Film Archive is screening this weekend and next — revel in a dangerous minimalism.

Lionel Loueke | Mwaliko Benin-born, Paris-and-Berklee-educated guitarist Loueke knows how to cover a lot of ground and make it all sound of a piece.

Purposeful randomness "How do I absorb all this beauty," Leslie Schomp writes in Diary (2010), an open cloth notebook resting on a wood stand.

Xiu Xiu | Dear God, I Hate Myself The reigning King of Discomfort, Jamie Stewart, and his new bandmate, Angela Seo (who took Cold Caveward–bound Caralee McElroy's place last year), recently released a video for this album's title track in which Seo forces herself to puke in front of the camera.

Arty crashers Fucked Up's career is a game of dares they're winning. Over the past few years, the Toronto band have trashed a bathroom on an MTV broadcast, played a 12-hour set in a NYC boutique, reeled in random notables like David Cross, Bob Mould, and Nelly Furtado for Christmas charity singles, landed their vocalist Pink Eyes appearances on Fox News, and won the 2009 Polaris Music Prize.

Rock in a hard place That little twang of cognitive dissonance you feel in your brain when someone refers to a “Boston rock scene” is perfectly normal.

Interview: Skeletonwitch’s Scott Hedrick You know you've made it to rock’s Big Time when interviewers catch you as you're boarding a jet, instead of loading the tour van. And although Athens, OH's Skeletonwitch didn’t happen to be boarding their own Iron Maiden-like 747 when we reached them, they’ve got too much going on these days to make it all happen on four wheels.

Infinite pleasure Admit it, fellow scribblers. You'd sell your soul to come up with an opening sentence like "Of the things we fashioned for them that they may be comforted, dawn is the one that works."

PHOTOS: PRESIDENT OBAMA SPEAKS AT THE CYCLORAMA | May 23, 2011 Obama speaks at the Cyclorama inside Boston Center for The Arts on May 18, 2011. He was proceeded by speakers from The New England Steering Committee, Governor Deval Patrick, current Celtics player Ray Allen and former Celtics player Bill Russell.